Ravenscroft School is a PK-12 independent school in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1862 by members of Christ Episcopal Church, Ravenscroft continued under their auspices until 1966 when it became non-sectarian. Housed for periods of time in Christ Church, St. Savior's Chapel, and then on Tucker Street, the School moved to its current Falls of Neuse location in 1969. The School is named for John Stark Ravenscroft, the first Bishop of Episcopal Diocese and first Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Raleigh.
We feel as a group that we have achieved so much through this process and have moved forward quickly with so many new tools.
Across campus, we have not only used many new tools ourselves, but have spread the word and have gotten others involved.
1) Since October, over 300 users have joined one or more of our 43 wikispaces under our private label wikispace, www.ravenscroft.wikispaces.net and have made about 3,500 edits. Wikispaces exist in Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools.
2) Students in an Upper School Leadership class have created a ning, http://leaderfeeder.ning.com/
3) One of our Kindergarten classes is Skyping with schools around the state to do their morning "Tell & Show"
4) Students in Lower School and Middle School are using Voicethread to share and learn from each other.
5) Fourth grade students are using Museum Boxes to share their research on the state of North Carolina.
Our Project:
For our project, we decided to focus on a professional development wiki to share and scale what we have been learning with the rest of the faculty.
Our school wide wiki will go public in the new school year at http://21stcenturyteachingtools.ravenscroft.wikispaces.net/ It is a protected, private label space. You can either request a membership to join, or you may use a guest user name (plpguest) with password plpguest, to view what we have done. Following is a brief description of the space we have created and the process for rolling out information to the faculty.
For the 2009-2010 school year, our main staff development project throughout the year will be sharing 21st Century Teaching Tools with everyone. With our wiki, we want to inform faculty and staff about the new tools available to them and give them the opportunity to learn the tools while receiving renewal credit for certification and professional development. The pages can be presented in a group setting for those who prefer to work with their teams, or can be done independently at a quicker pace for those who are ready to move forward.
We created pages for each tool or tools that we want the faculty to understand and use in instruction. The page consists of a documentation form with questions that faculty members answer as they go through each page of the wiki. The pages include a definition of the tool and a video link to demonstrate the tool in action, clarifying why and how it can be used. Each page is linked to a page of Educational Examples and a Resources page. Faculty members are asked to search for new resources and add them to the resources page to expand available information to their colleagues.
Our PLP Team:
Julie Folsom, 4th Grade Instructor
Joni Keane, 4th Grade Instructor
Francois Nel, 6th Grade Reading & Vocabulary Instructor
Tim Phillips, 8th Grade Science Instructor
Janet Vande Berg, 6th Grade Science Instructor
Kathleen Christopher, Academic Computing Coordinator (Team Leader & Fellow)
We feel as a group that we have achieved so much through this process and have moved forward quickly with so many new tools.
Across campus, we have not only used many new tools ourselves, but have spread the word and have gotten others involved.
1) Since October, over 300 users have joined one or more of our 43 wikispaces under our private label wikispace, www.ravenscroft.wikispaces.net and have made about 3,500 edits. Wikispaces exist in Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools.
2) Students in an Upper School Leadership class have created a ning, http://leaderfeeder.ning.com/
3) One of our Kindergarten classes is Skyping with schools around the state to do their morning "Tell & Show"
4) Students in Lower School and Middle School are using Voicethread to share and learn from each other.
5) Fourth grade students are using Museum Boxes to share their research on the state of North Carolina.
Our Project:
For our project, we decided to focus on a professional development wiki to share and scale what we have been learning with the rest of the faculty.
Our school wide wiki will go public in the new school year at http://21stcenturyteachingtools.ravenscroft.wikispaces.net/ It is a protected, private label space. You can either request a membership to join, or you may use a guest user name (plpguest) with password plpguest, to view what we have done. Following is a brief description of the space we have created and the process for rolling out information to the faculty.
For the 2009-2010 school year, our main staff development project throughout the year will be sharing 21st Century Teaching Tools with everyone. With our wiki, we want to inform faculty and staff about the new tools available to them and give them the opportunity to learn the tools while receiving renewal credit for certification and professional development. The pages can be presented in a group setting for those who prefer to work with their teams, or can be done independently at a quicker pace for those who are ready to move forward.
We created pages for each tool or tools that we want the faculty to understand and use in instruction. The page consists of a documentation form with questions that faculty members answer as they go through each page of the wiki. The pages include a definition of the tool and a video link to demonstrate the tool in action, clarifying why and how it can be used. Each page is linked to a page of Educational Examples and a Resources page. Faculty members are asked to search for new resources and add them to the resources page to expand available information to their colleagues.